CALAIS – Two people can make a difference. Just ask 17- and 14-year-old siblings Jamie and Warren Demmons of Meddybemps.

Now two police dogs that on occasion must search in harm’s way are wearing bulletproof vests thanks to the two youngsters.

The Woodland High School teens spent their summer raising nearly $1,800 to buy vests for Major and Kliff, two German shepherd police dogs.

Major belongs to the Calais Police Department. Kliff is a brown-eyed beauty who responds to commands in German and is attached to the Washington County Sheriff’s Department.

Their handlers – Patrolman Chris Donahue and Deputy Michael St. Louis – were at the Calais Police Department on Sunday to receive the vests. The black armor was tried on for size and the two proud pooches stepped lightly around the parking lot.

It took the two teens only four days to raise the $700 they needed for the first vest, so they decided to continue. On Sunday, they not only presented Kliff with a vest, but they also presented volunteer Sue Carter of PAWS Inc., the city’s no-kill animal shelter, with a check for $396.

The police officers said the vests would make a difference. “This is very important for the safety of the dog and the safety of me,” St. Louis said. “I don’t have to be with him all the time; I can send him [into a building] now and not worry about getting shot myself.”

If the two young people had not made the effort, the city’s and county’s strained budgets would not have covered the cost. “Everybody knows the budget problems we are having,” said Sgt. David Randall of the Calais Police Department. “So we’re probably real lucky to have vests for the guys that have been here [for a while].”

The two teens got the idea of raising the money from their father, Joel Demmons, who had seen a similar fund-raising effort on the television program “America’s Most Wanted.”

They were able to provide the money because of a change in state law.

In February, Kelly Davis of Bath spent a year raising more than $12,000 to buy bulletproof vests for police dogs in her community.

Then the state told the then-12-year-old she was breaking the law.

Davis lobbied the Legislature and got the law changed. In April, the Legislature made it legal to solicit money to benefit law enforcement officers, agencies or associations.

Earlier, the efforts of Anna Schwarcz of Orrington, who was 13 at the time, apparently went unnoticed because she raised money to buy bulletproof vests for two dogs in the Bangor Police Department canine unit and for Caine, a black German shepherd who works with Deputy Kate Fleury of the Washington County Sheriff’s Department

“We want to tell everyone ‘Thank you,'” a smiling Jamie Demmons said Sunday. “This was a tremendous thing for both of us to do and without [the public] we probably wouldn’t have been able to do it.”

In addition to putting cans in area stores, they held a car wash and sold raffle tickets after Pratt’s Chevrolet-Olds-Pontiac-Buick-Geo Inc. in Calais donated a $500 gift certificate to the cause.